With Me
by Safely Away
Summary: It was time. Oneshot.


_A/N hi everyone! long time no see :) If you follow me as a writer, I know that this is different, but I love this series and emailed fanfiction to set up a new category for it and voila! I posted this on Ao3, but I wanted to post it here of course. This fic takes place a few years after _Shadowsong_. I tried my hardest to mimic the lyrical writing of S. Jae-Jones, but to emulate her is no easy feat. I implore you to enjoy my heart spread wide open. _

_** also, for those of you who follow my _Divergent_ and _Hunger Game_ fics, I am working on two _**major **_WIPs that I am over the moon about. I'm almost-ish finished with one and am elbow-deep in the other. I can't wait for you to read them! _

_All my love, _

_Jo_

* * *

It was time.

She rose with the responsibility on her shoulders. Her duty wasn't a heavy weight, not an albatross, but just her piece of what she could give. What she could contribute. She of all people surely was not foreign to these acts of effort. Not in the inn, not in the past, not as the eldest sibling, and not now.

Their bedroom alight with the same knowledge of what she was to do. The violet shadows of dawn gave way to little splatters of light, like an abstract painting. They covered the bureau, drops of sunshine, salacious, teasing, lapped up the mahogany of the chemise, their wedding portrait, the vanity. And still, it was a welcome start to the stagnant cloudiness of winter.

Beside her, her husband stirred and she smiled at his sleeping form. One langley arm sprawled across the bed, another hanging off the rim. His legs bent like twigs on a forlorn tree. Poised perfectly, pointed, sharp. But there was nothing sharp about this man that laid here. Not anymore. As if he had heard her thoughts, he smacked his full lips and turned towards her in his slumber. His cupid's bow slick with the heat of the hearth across the room, and an imprint of the burlap case of the pillow on his neck. This was the face of a man whose soul had been returned to him. The leisure of mortality, the comfort of humanity.

She resisted the urge to trail a finger across the downy platinum curls atop his head in lieu of her mission for today. With a quiet and forceful push of the bed, she stepped towards the washroom.

She brought a dampened towel from the basin and quickly went to work on her crusted eyes, the water supplanting her sleep-ladened pallor before dropping it back into the bucket. Three strokes of a brush through her hair, a rinse of her mouth, and she was done. And yet she still stood at the mirror. Expecting…? Expecting nothing.

It was a while before she ceased peering deeply into the mirrors of her little home. Of anywhere. The doors had been shut permanently to _that_ world, but sometimes, on days like today, she had hoped that a sliver of him would return to her. Ached for a touch, a sound, a sign.

Her husband met her gaze in the reflection. He snuck up on her still; even without the mischief and the magic, the stealth remained, as did other features of her king. She sucked in a breath as a memory overtook her—how blessed she was that he was here in the flesh instead of through a window that she could not touch.

He enveloped her, wholly, completely, warmly. He was always warm. She closed her eyes as his hands settled on the swell of her belly. She smiled into his wrists.

The babe.

The unborn child came easily and unexpectedly to them. They had been delirious with their love, feverish and foolish. They had rediscovered themselves, him in his new body, in his old body, in his human body, and her as Elisabeth and not Liesl. Not an older sister, not a keeper of an inn or fatherly drunken stupors. Their marriage bed creaked and groaned alongside them, as did the disgruntled and humorous harrumphs of their elderly neighbors. And so, instead of her monthly blood came a monthly growth.

Wolfgang had cried when she told him.

"_But my seed,"_ he sniffled, his face flushed that night. "_It is rotten."_

It had taken moments for him to remember his new self from his old. Where he was now, whom he was now. The bits of pieces of _Der Erlkönig_ broke away slowly and surely, but there were times where he forgot. And she would be there to remind him that he was indeed, truly alive.

"_Your seed is luscious and fertile," _ Elisabeth had firmly said before letting out a laugh. "_Look what precious fruit it has bore!" _

She was further along in her months now. Her tiny body overtaken. She waddled instead of walked, and her husband delighted in the sight much to her dismay. It wouldn't be too long now, for the child would be born in the spring.

The spring that she would urge to reappear.

"Be, thou, with me," her voice was faint. Distant.

Her mortal king held her tighter in acquiescence. "What can I do?" He murmured against the kisses he peppered on her neck.

Elisabeth deflated. She had learned to know the words that were not spoken. The words underneath. _What can I do? How can I make this day easier for you? How can I take away the pain? What can I do? _

She gently withdrew from her husband, and instead turned to face him. A hand on his heart, a hand on his arm. Her austere young man would forever stay, now. No longer a shadow in the immortal game of peek-a-boo in the underground. He was whole. He was his. She had not known what to expect of his looks once he emerged from below to become one of them forever. What would he lack? What would he miss? The silver glow that haloed him every which and where he went? The dash of speed that substituted walking. Doors, even?

But he looked the same. Save for the humanness of the blunt teeth in place of fangs, the softer edges of the angles, and the flush, the rose that was affixed to his skin. Yes, he looked the same.

"My dear?" He questioned, his mossen and soddy eyes alit with concern.

Elisabeth reached for the closest gown. "Will you help me dress? I can't seem to reach the buttons anymore."

He smiled. "As you wish."

Wolfgang revelled in the simplest of human comforts. Watching him return to what he was owed, to which he came from, was an overdue reunion. It was the first sound of a bow and a string, a finger to a klavier key, where joy met despair.

Her mother was more than grateful for his helpful demeanor as well.

"_Wherever you found him Liesl," _she joked one day, "_do bring more of them." _

He found pleasure in the mundane. In the normal. A symptom of, at long last being relinquished from the spell that bound him from being himself. And yet, the remnants of being Elf-touched were still there.

As he went to work releasing the frays from her sleep gown and substituting them for the simple one, placing wool socks over her swollen feet, boots over those layers and lacing them up, she gratefully brushed her hand along his shoulder.

She was a paradox of herself, she had found, these past months. Thrilled and anxious, emotional and firm, brave and afraid. The previous week she had wailed at the sight of a tiny tot tumbling through the snow. The child's mother consoled him after the fall, kissed his teeny knobby knee and they went about their day, but Elisabeth was horrified. The lurch in her stomach that day was not the kick of the babe. She'd returned home that day a babbling mess, terrified of what type of mother she would be. Would a too tender one ruin the child? But she knew that a stoic one would render the child in permanent questioning of what love truly was. She would not subject any flesh of her and her husband's to that life. No. She knew it all too well.

Her husband shook her out of her stupor with a final layer of warmth; the red cloak, and led her down the staircase of their Bavarian cabin they came back to only once a year.

This was the second time she would do it. Play her song for the King. For him to spin the world into life. And yet, it was then when she faced the doors to leave that it hit her harder than before.

"My dear?"

Suddenly she scanned the room in a frantic sweep. The kitchenette in one corner of the floor, a pot bubbling with hard eggs on the stove, the loveseat in the other corner, windbreakers and skirts haphazardly strewn along the cushion, evidence from the night before, the windows lined with frost, and in front of her, her husband with a silent worry etched between his eyes.

"I—" she gasped. "I n-need—" but she did not know.

He wordlessly led her to the chair at their small dining nook and sat beside her. She gulped the air like a fish out of water. She did not know where to put her hands, they hovered over her knees, the table, and finally settled at her belly.

She willed away the condensation growing and threatening to spill over under her lashes. "It's the hormones," she swatted at her eyes, frustrated. "I'm fine."

Wolfgang drew her shaking hands to his heart, breathed in her scent. But she had always been a sucker to these acts of kindness and this opened the floodgates.

"It's such a burden," she growled through the hiccoughs. How could her brother bestow it to her? To come back to the hills of Bavaria, to revisit the ghosts and ghouls Constanze had run away from, her family had run away from, the ones that pierced her heart. To face him and the whispers of the past, to be condoned to this different type of reckoning.

And then she felt selfish. For this burden was nothing to spending eternity underneath the earth. And she cried harder.

Then her child thrummed inside her and she halted. The babe shushed her, it seemed. Lulled her, spun her cries into sighs. And once all was calm, once the tears were stale, she took the gloved hand of her husband and they both stepped out into the cold.

* * *

Winter did not do the Goblin Grove well this year.

This winter was angry and stubborn, vengeful and impatient. This winter suffocated with the white blankets of snow instead of comforted, crushed with pockets of ice instead of shone, gripped all in its wake like a vise instead of an embrace. This season's intent was not beauty, there was no crystalline wonder, but ferocity.

Elisabeth shuddered, this winter dared her to wish it away.

Wolfgang had stayed back at the opening of the grove as he always did; for it was a private conversation to be had between her and her brother, her and spring.

It still pained her for some moments, as she was sure it would for the rest of her life. It would ebb and flow, some days harder than others. Some moments sharper than others. It was a dance, to marvel at what she had gained and mourn what she had lost. She did not know the steps at first; she stumbled over bliss and spun around the agony. But she was learning.

The choice was of his own volition, she had to remind herself. His heart had saved them all. Willingly.

"_It was never a bride who was needed to bring the world back to life, it was grace." _ The voice of Twig circled her mind.

Grace required nothing of her, yet it did nothing to absolve her of the pain she bore.

No one warned her what the aftershocks of unrequited love would feel like. Not the one her and Hans had shared those years ago, not the kind where the other could not reciprocate love. No, the kind where the love had to be shared. The tremors that rippled from the rejection of a selfish love was agonizing.

Elisabeth at settled on her knees to open the case that held the fate of the world. The violin's copper color was a stark contrast to the pale ground under it. She ran a finger along the strings, the tuning humming with intention, before she rose poise and ready facing where the cobblestone bled into dirt.

She started softly and slowly, as she did the years past. It was a formula, a careful rhythm to shake the trees of their slumber, remind them of their duties to the wood, remind them how delectable the taste of living was. How their roots needed to stretch out into the sodden ground and drink up through the soil. They needed to cover themselves with leaves and nests and ants, for they were much too bare. Too naked.

She played to wake the bees, to thaw and loosen the honeycomb, to lift the pollen from the depths of the hidden flowers beneath the snow. The marigold fluff to arouse the insects, instill in them a thrumming, a purpose, the world to take. The fuel to beat their wings.

She played to crack the ice, to clear the frost, to draw the sap, to pull the sun, to beckon the foxes and their rabbit prey, to wish winter away for another time.

_Awaken! Awaken! Awaken! _

All of this risen glory supplanted the tune, they _were _the tune. It was transformative, transcendent. It was their birthright to resurrect themselves.

And once he was sure the forest knew of her presence, she transitioned into the Wedding Night Sonata to awaken another. It took no more than a note for her brother to come to her.

_Sepperl_

For all of the life that was to stir at her song, for the soprano tweets and chirps of the birds, the tenor bass of the bullfrogs, it was silent now. Just a violin and a klavier. Simple and deafening. A tale as old as time.

They started as they always did, with their game. She sped and he slowed, she tripped and he steadied her, she trembled and he was sure, she had turned into the melody this time, she shut her eyes to feel his words. To feel him.

Hands materialized before her, slender, olive, soft and kind. He tapped the notes so gently. It was as if his fingertips were kissing the keys. So tender.

_Go out in joy_, the keys said, _and be led forth in peace._

She bit her lip. He was playing scripture. And she dared not to look at his face, for she made that unbearable mistake the year prior and ached for weeks afterwards. The music was his image, the sound crafted his silhouette. It was enough.

_It's hard _she fiddled back, long strokes of her elbow, languid, her wrist rubbed raw, _I am trying, Sepperl._

The King inscrutable yet calm, the keys blended together, the sounds ferocious and sweet, an array. _I did not intend for you to suffer, Liesl. I did not intend for you to shoulder the cost, the burden. _

_But I have! _She wanted to scream, _but I did, but I do! _She was playing so hard now she was sure the strings of the instrument would snap, her bow to fly out into the distance, a fire to start, smoke to billow from the strings. That would surely awake winter, would it not? A raging fire, to engulf her.

_Love, my sister, will always be a burden. _

Quicker, quicker.

_Where I am, you are with me._

Then the song changed, from day to night, from anger to still. The lightness of the keys ebbed away my frustration, my lividity. The tune was bright, fanciful, fanatical. It was the fairy lights in the darkness, the kiss of butterfly wings on pinched cheeks, the explosion of the first taste of a summer peach.

Love will always be a burden.

His words undid her, and inside of her her child stirred again. The babe must have felt the pulsing of her heart, the rushing of her blood. Her bow felt heavy, and she moved to lower it, she was too tired. She was too…

A presence behind her steadied her. Gently prodded her elbow back to position, cushioned her arm the violin settled in, laid a kiss on the cheek a stray tear escaped down.

"I will shoulder it with you," Wolfgang whispered. "I will."

Elisabeth's sound filled the empty spaces her brother made room for. A harmonic see-saw, a jilt, a peg, a sigh, a cry. She matched the shapes he drew, she closed the holes he opened, she poured what was left of herself that day into remembrance and into a goodbye. And once the final key was played, the final string plucked, she laid back upon the arms of her beloved. Gratefully, lovingly, spent.

She felt her brother draw away from her, wisp by wisp. As did the last dregs of winter. The drips of the icicles melting with the first sign of heat on their sheaths filled the place with sound once they had finished their own musical banter. The veil between the two worlds was closed once more, gone again for the season. Her job was done.

She wondered, then, if the world had known the longing that suspended it on its axis. The sacrifice it took to ensure each breath of every woman, man, and child alive. The nonsense of space and time and gravity. The foolish meanderings of science paled in comparison to that of this act right here. What were numbers and equations to sacrifice?

She did not know what to feel in that moment. Equal parts sorrow and satisfaction, hurt and longing. But above it all, most prominent of it all, was love.

Love had always been immortal. It was only now that it manifested in such tangible ways that she could truly see.

Carefully, she placed her instrument in its case, and used her husband's arms for leverage, before drawing them to cover her belly. Her hands covered his.

Elisabeth smiled. In the corners of her lips were certainty. "We will shoulder it together?"

Her husband's eyes glinted. If it were unshed tears, she was not clear, but it was not mischief, and she thanked God for it. And his smile reached beyond his eyes, outstretched to his lips where he met hers ever so softly. In their kiss was a promise with no price. _I love you, I love you. _

"Yes, my love," his voice muffled where his head lay atop of hers. "We shall. Together."

The plain plump girl and the tall elegant man returned once more to their home, hand in hand, soul in soul.

_Where I am, you are with me._

She took his words and hid them deep inside her heart.

* * *

_In the distance, music plays. It is the sound of his sister's voice, reaching across the veil between worlds. And as he had done when he was a baby in a cradle, Josef reaches back. _

_Their souls touch, and it is a bridge. He had a name. He had a soul. He had grace. _

_Der Erlkonig remembers what it is to love. _

_And brings the world back to life. _

fin.


End file.
